Wilder, Abel Carter, member of Congress, was born at Mendon (now Blackstone), Worcester county, Mass., March 18, 1828, a lineal descendant of Thomas Wilder, who was buried in Lancaster, Mass., in 1651. His educational advantages were few, but he was a bright boy and at the age of eighteen engaged in trade in his native town. Later he went to Woonsocket, R. I., and in 1849 to Rochester; N. Y., where two of his brothers were living. In that city he began to take an active part in political affairs, acting with the Whig and Free-Soilers until the organization of the Republican party. Early in 1857 Mr. Wilder came to Kansas and settled in Leavenworth, where he engaged in the real estate business. Two years later, when the Republican party was organized at Osawatomie, he was made secretary of the state central committee, and at each of the two subsequent state conventions he was made chairman of the committee. In 1860 he was chairman of the Kansas delegation in the Republican national convention at Chicago and voted for William H. Seward for president. At the Republican convention held on May 22, 1861, Mr. Wilder was again made chairman of the Republican state committee. On Aug. 7 he was made a brigade commissary, one of the first military appointments made by President Lincoln in Kansas, and was stationed at Fort Scott. On Sept. 11, 1862, he was nominated for Congress by the Republican convention at Topeka and was elected on Nov. 4 by a majority Of 5,000 votes. In 1864 he published a letter declining renomination. At the state convention at Topeka on April 21, 1864, he was elected a delegate to the Republican national convention at Baltimore, and acted in the same capacity in 1868 and 1872 from New York, having returned to Rochester, and thus served in four successive national conventions. In the fall of 1865, after returning to Rochester, he became publisher of the Evening Express. In 1872 he was elected mayor of Rochester, but his health became impaired and he resigned in 1873 to make a trip to Europe, his second trip abroad, and remained nearly a year. His health was poor until his death which occurred in San Francisco, Cal., Dec. 22, 1875.